The original 1950 cover for the novel ‘ The Martian Chronicles’ has got to be one of my favorite cover designs of all time. It’s so simple, yet has a lot of layers plus the colors are an excellent choice! By making ‘space’ red and blue, you get a push pull visually and psychologically and it puts this ‘space’ further away and in the future (which is the goal). Not only that but the typography is simple, but effective with an interesting layout without being too abstract. Also, the thin, curving lines that are the path of the spaceship are just perfect! Such a nice touch, especially since they change color and thickness/dashed.

It took a bit of research but I found out that this original cover was done by Arthur Lidov, who isn’t particularly well known from what I can tell. Apparently he was both an inventor and self-taught painter and did a lot of work that was science themed. These are some examples of his paintings and of his more ‘mainstream’ work.